Augmented reality represents a presentation of virtual objects along side real-world elements. Individuals can experience or interact with augmented realities according to the rules defined by the reality designers. Individuals tap into augmented reality content via cell phones, mobile computing platforms, or other AR-capable devices. Augmented reality continues to encroach rapidly on every day life while the amount of augmented reality content continues to grow at an alarming rate. Individuals are easily overwhelmed by the growing excess of available augmented reality content.
Consider one augmented reality service, BUMP.com. BUMP.com offers access to annotations bound to individual license plates as described in the Wall Street Journal™ web articled titled “License to Pry”, published on Mar. 10, 2011 . BUMP.com allows individuals to send images of license plates to the BUMP.com service. The service in turn attempts to recognize the license plate and returns annotations left by others for the same plate. Users of the system require a dedicated application to interact with the content. BUMP.com only supports providing access to their available content via their application.
Layar™ of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, makes further strides in presenting augmented reality by offering access to multiple augmented reality layers where each layer is distinct or separate from other layers. A user can select which layer where layers are published by one or more third party developers. Even though Layar provides an application allowing users to select content provided by multiple third parties, the user is required choose a layer via the Layar application. Furthermore, the user is presented with single purpose content rather than experiencing augmented reality as naturally as one would experience the real-world. In the coming world of ever-present augmented reality, users should be able to seamlessly access or interact with augmented reality content as naturally as they would interact with real-world elements.
Some progress has been made over the last few years toward creating a seamless integration between user and augmented reality environments. For example, U.S. patent application publication 2006/0047704 to Gopalakrishnan titled “Method and System for Providing Information Service Relevant to Visual Imagery”, filed Aug. 30, 2005, discusses presenting embedded information services for an augment reality experience based on a context. Yet another example includes U.S. patent application publication 2009/0167787 to Bathiche et al. titled “Augment Reality and Filtering”, filed Dec. 28, 2007, offers deeper insight in providing an enhanced user experience based on a context. Bethiche discusses that virtual capabilities can be interspersed with real-world situations where the virtual data can be filtered, ranked, modified, or ignored based on a context. In a similar vein, U.S. patent application publication 2010/0257252 to Dougherty titled “Augmented Reality Cloud Computing”, filed Apr. 1, 2009, also describes providing overlay information considered pertinent to a user's surrounding environment. Although useful for providing an enriched experience for users based on context, the user still must interact with a dedicated augmented reality system. U.S. Pat. No. 7,529,639 to Räsänen et al. titled “Location-Based Novelty Index Value and Recommendation System and Method”, filed Mar. 4, 2008, describes using location and an inferred context to generate recommendations for a user. The above references also fail to appreciate that objects within an environment or scene can interfere with each other to give rise to an augmented reality experience.
From the perspective of presenting augmented reality context, to some degree U.S. Pat. No. 7,899,915 to Reisman titled “Method and Apparatus for Browsing Using Multiple Coordinated Device Sets”, filed May 8, 2003, appreciates that multiple devices can be utilized by a user. Reisman's approach allows a user to switch among display or presentation devices when interacting with hypermedia. Unfortunately, Reisman merely handles the user's side of a rich media interaction and fails to appreciate that a user's experience is also impacted by the underlying dedicated augmented reality infrastructure or by interference among elements of a scene.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,904,577 to Taylor titled “Data Transmission Protocol and Visual Display for a Networked Computer System”, filed Mar. 31, 2008, provides some support for virtual reality gaming through a protocol supporting multiple players. Even further, U.S. Pat. No. 7,908,462 to Sung titled “Virtual World Simulation Systems and Methods Utilizing Parallel Coprocessors, and Computer Program Products Thereof”, filed Jun. 9, 2010, contemplates hosting a virtual work on parallel processing array of graphic processors or field-programmable gate arrays. Although focused on providing infrastructure, the contemplated infrastructures still requires the user to interact with a dedicated augmented reality system.
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Strangely, known approaches for providing augmented reality content treat augment reality platforms as silos of virtual worlds or objects where each company develops their own hosting infrastructure to provide augmented reality services to users. Such approaches fail to allow individuals to move seamlessly from one augmented reality to another as naturally as moving from one room in a building to another. Furthermore, existing infrastructures fail to treat augmented reality objects as distinct manageable objects in an infrastructure agonistic manner, where an augmented reality infrastructure can also be a pervasive utility. For example, in the developed world electricity is ubiquitous or more aptly internet connectivity is ubiquitous. Augmented realities would benefit from similar treatment.
In a world of ubiquitous augmented realities or associated augmented reality objects where individuals interact with the augmented realities in a seamless fashion, individuals still require presentation of relevant augmented reality content especially when features, real or virtual, of an augmented reality can interfere with each other. As discussed above with respect to references presenting information based on a context, the same references fail to address interference among augmented realities or elements, real or virtual, participating in an augmented reality experience. Interestingly, known art seeks to avoid interference among elements of the augmented reality by simply forcing individuals to select which features to experience. The known art fails to appreciate that interference among elements can occur based on properties or attributes of the elements. Interference is more than mere a filtering mechanism. Interference represents ambient interplay among present, or relevant, elements in a scene that gives rise to an augmented reality experience through constructive or destructive interference.
What has yet to be appreciated is one or more augmented realities can be hosted by a common hosting infrastructure, the networking infrastructure itself for example, or that augmented reality objects can be distinct from the hosting platform. For example, the Applicant has appreciated, as discussed below, networking nodes within a networking fabric can provide augmented reality objects or other virtual constructs to edge AR-capable devices (e.g., cell phones, kiosks, tablet computers, vehicles, etc.). As the edge devices, or other devices for that matter, interact with the networking fabric by exchanging data, the fabric can determine which augmented reality objects are most relevant or even which augmented reality itself is most relevant for the device based on context derived from observed real-world elements. Augmented reality context can now be used to determine how elements in a scene, a location relevant to an individual, can interfere with each other to give rise to relevant augmented reality experiences.
Thus, there is still a need for interference based augmented reality platforms.